


Dream's End and Beginning

by AppleSoda



Series: Data and Dreams [3]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Friendship, Gen, KH3 spoilers, i keep writing kairi takes mark of mastery stories oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-06-02 14:27:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19443295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppleSoda/pseuds/AppleSoda
Summary: On the night before a grand ball at the Castle of Dreams, Kairi is enlisted by the Fairy Godmother to help, along with another keyblade wielder. But at midnight, a secret reveals itself that draws questions about his past.





	1. Chapter 1

Kairi followed the thin trail of silver sparks that wound through the woods for what seemed like forever.

The magic had been easy enough to spot at nightfall, as everything around her dimmed, from the trees to the path leading her .Dream Eaters flew out of trees and crawled out of tunnels, and if it weren’t for the fact that they attacked on sight, they could have blended in with the ordinary woodland creatures that roamed the forest.

Each time she stopped to fend off monsters, the swirl of magic that seemed to guide her waited patiently, until she had defeated them. Afterwards, the light bobbed up and down approvingly,before continuing on its way, merrily bouncing across trees and shrubbery. It was a clear, thin line that dropped sparkling trails in its wake, clear as dayand possessing something like a life of its own.

Though Kairi couldn’t place the reason, the strand of magic magic reminded her a little of Merlin’s spellwork— it didn’t resemble the rapid-fire combat spells that Kairi had been taught and seen, and was more of a playful thing that simply existed. The magic was a soothing, curious spark of energy that emanated optimism. As she hurried along in its path, Kairi was half-certain that at the end of the trail of magic, she would find the wizard himself, cup of tea in hand and armed with a new list of riddles and tasks.

As much as Kairi had wanted to see her one-time tutor, the elderly wizard remained frustratingly absent form the woods. Instead, she found herself at the entrance to a grand-looking house that stood at the edge of the wood. Inside, lights glowed softly and the sound of women shouting about something in loud, jarring voices rang through the glade. She flinched at the sound of crockery shattering against the wall, sudden and sharp.

Even if Dream Eaters didn’t swarm the house, it wasn’t the most pleasant of places to have been lead to. Whoever lived in the house didn’t appear to have an easy time in the least. The question, though, was why she had been taken there.

Silver sparks sparked out from the wand of a cloaked woman, who was idly tapping it against her shoulder. She was plump, tall, and smiling just outside the chateau.

“Ah, hello there, dear.” Her voice was patient and serene. “I had been wondering when you’d receive my message, Kairi. It’s always a pleasure to meet one of Merlin’s pupils.” She gestured towards the house.

The woman didn’t appear to be dangerous, but still, it was difficult to be certain exactly what people wanted.

“I believe you know a young lady that lives in there named Cinderella. I serve as her Fairy Godmother.”

Cinderella had arrived in Hollow Bastion in a swirl of silver, and despite their difficulties, was a Princess that seemed to be able to dream even in a dire situation. Out of all the other Princesses of Heart, Kairi had felt the most put off by her, for a reason she couldn’t quite place. Shoes of glass were impractical, and there were a great deal of things better to dream about than attending a ball somewhere. At the time, she had a love-hate relationship with those types of princesses, who appeared childish and simple and consisted of dreams and light.

“It certainly sounds…troubling in there.” It was hard to shake off remnants of that resentment, even though there wasn’t any good reason to dislike the other girl. But Kairi knew better than to badmouth Cinderella in front of her magical patron.

“I TOLD YOU TO STITCH PURPLE BUTTONS ON THE LEFT SIDE. AND AS ANYONE CAN SEE, THEY’RE _CLEARLY_ ON THE RIGHT!”

“WHERE ARE MY SHOES? YOU SAID THEY’D COME BACK FROM THE COBBLER’S SHOP AGES AGO—” a second voice screeched at a volume that was somehow louder than the first one.”

There was also the fact that nobody deserved getting screamed at to the degree to which Cinderella did.

“She is,” the fairy nodded solemnly. “The poor girl’s being locked away by her family the night of the ball. And she’s spent an awful long time wanting to go.”

“Well, that bites,” Kairi groused, then realized that she was speaking to something close to a conscience. “Oh, erm—I mean— I know how sad that must be,” she corrected herself. If there was any upside to being a more prim-and-proper type Princess of Heart, she surmised that it was probably that you sounded less awkward in talking to strangers.

The fairy only laughed, as if they both knew it wasn’t a very good smoothing over of her feelings. “I understand, dear. But I know your heart is in the right place.” It was assuring, how little they’d spoken, and yet Kairi felt more certainty about what she needed to do. “In fact, consider this a bit of a magic lesson for you. Something to fight against the difficult challenge you have ahead.”

“Should I…turn invisible?” It didn’t seem like the masters of the house seemed amenable to guests at the moment. “They’re not going to like people going in, will they?”

The fairy smiled knowingly, and flicked the bell-shaped sleeves of her cloak. “I have a second pupil inside, dear. Let’s go to find him together.” The silver wand sparked a thin line of magic that swirled around the both of them, and Kairi looked up. The trees and house that surrounded them seemed to grow in size. But they hadn’t grown, and she knew exactly why.

“Alice was right about this,” she muttered. “You never know how to think about something like this.” Soon, she was sped by magic into a small hole in the side of the house, and away she went with the Fairy Godmother.

= = =

They weren’t alone in the tunnels of the house, as small mice brushed past them. Magic propelled Kairi and the Godmother past them quickly, and one of the mice gave a little wave with a grin.

When they stopped, they were in a room, humbly furnished, with a candle guttering in its stand at the top of a desk as the only light source. The house, as nice as it was outside, never gave any indication that it had a room like this-- shabby from floor to ceiling. There was only one fine thing within it, and it was a tacky-looking pink dress on a mannequin.

“So, where can we find your other student?” asked Kairi.

“He should be arriving just about….”

“Almost ready for Cinderelly’s dress,” chirped a small mouse in red. “Cmon, cmon!”

Stacking beads together patiently was a boy with spiked blond hair. As he was close to finishing, he lobbed a bead in the air and held out his hand, only for a Keyblade to materialize right into it. Confidently, he swatted at the small rounded piece of turquoise, batting the bead towards the top of the pile with a grin.

“Now.” The Fairy Godmother pointed at him.

When he turned around, Kairi recognized the face of someone she had spoken to in what seemed like a dream in itself. Absent was any of the troubled furrows in the features of the Nobody. This Roxas looked like he could go anywhere he pleased, and that everything ahead of him was an opportunity.

“Roxas?” asked the boy. “Who’s that?” He glanced at Kairi with a gaze that wasn’t nearly as suspicious or cautious as she’d seen Sora’s Nobody. Also missing were the two keys that Roxas held, one silvery-white and one jet-black. This boy’s keyblade was curved, and he held it backwards— as carefree as its wielder.

That could only mean one thing.

“I’m Ventus,” he continued. “Everyone calls me Ven, though. Are you here to learn about magic, as well?”

“Kairi,” she answered, staring right back at the boy whose heart Sora had saved. “I’ve heard about you.” But just like everyone else she had met in dreams, there was the uncertainty of whether he was real or not, and whether he was friend or foe.

“Lovely,” the Fairy Godmother clasped her hands together, beaming. “Shall we get started on the lesson, then?”


	2. Chapter 2

As it turned out, making a princess was much harder than Kairi had imagined. It was easier to not think about where the fine dresses and jewelry that Cinderella and Belle and Aurora had worn had come from. After all, there were bigger problems to deal with at the time. But now, in a world where attending a ball was the biggest problem, everything had to be in just the right place.

Just as the Fairy Godmother instructed, she wound the keyblade with an overhead circular motion, the lace swirled neatly and twined around a bobbin, making it easier for the duo of mice in front of her to start fastening it to the side of the dress. The little brown creatures scurried up and down the surface of a mannequin, busily fastening decorations to the pink and white frock. Another pair sewed lace into place tidily.

Ventus was watching her, eyes wide with an expression that brimmed with curiosity as he readied beading for another team of mice to string into a neckalce. Before they had gotten to work, he wanted to know where she was from, what she could do, and how she had found the Fairy Godmother were easy enough to answer. Little by little, she learned of his journey, as well.

To him, Aqua and Terra were never the distant, troubled figures that Kairi always thought of them as. They had never been never lost out in the world somewhere, but were the friends he kept closest at his side. As they worked, stories about Terra’s reckless streak and Aqua’s tendency to worry brought them to life far more than anything else she had heard of them.

There loomed the possibility, of course, that Ven simply hadn’t lost them yet. Those guesses, Kairi kept to herself.

“Every time I visit a world, I’ve made connections to different people that live there. Listening to them is how I grow stronger, as well,” Ven explained, and Kairi wasn’t sure why she ever thought he was similar to Roxas in anything other than appearance. It seemed as if the boy carried none of the weighty contradictions that the Nobody dealt with, and believed that good things always lay ahead. That was something to be jealous of, and was something that a great deal of Princesses she had met believed, as well.

“Are keyblade wielders like that where you come from?” He asked.

Kairi thought about the question for a moment. In part, it was true. Sora had grown strong enough to defeat many a hopeless situation.“Yes, I’d say so,” she answered, her expression purposefully unchanging.

Sora had almost certainly fought with that in mind, and even Riku seemed like he always trusted King Mickey, which had certainly made him stronger for it. But lately, whenever she summoned the keyblade, the connections that she had always trusted felt fainter than they had been before. Riku had already gone ahead, searching for Sora’s whereabouts. She wanted to follow suit, as soon as she could.

Some time ago, Kairi had lost connections to the other Princesses of heart uncertain where she fit with them, as well— a girl who didn’t have much in the way of a good story or extraordinary talents. It was only in the Dreaming Worlds that she had really started to know about them once more, piece by piece and story by story. And little by little, she was learning about others that wielded the keyblade, and the trials they overcame. 

“I’ve been training with one lately. His name’s Lea, and he’s kind of—”

“Lea? That kid?” Ven’s brow furrowed as he cut in. “He’s a keyblade wielder?”

“Oh, um...” Lying proactively wasn’t always her forte, but lately, she’d had to do it more and more. “Lea’s older where I come from.”

“Another time?!” Ven nearly dropped the armful of beads he carried, but had been saved by a few alert little mice.“Oh, but if you tell me too much, that ruins time, doesn’t it?” He considered the problem carefully, before the mouse in front of him squeaked indignantly, clearly aiming for him to get back to flicking beads up the dress with the keyblade.

Kairi considered her words carefully. “Well, a lot happens, but I think at some point, the keyblade chose him,” she turned away, and checked her section of the dress for anything missing from the details. “Isn’t it funny, how things turn out how you don’t expect?”

“Well, not funny. I’m not sure where I’m going to go next,” Ven peered up, and saw a completed teal-blue beaded necklace and a mouse giving him a thumbs-up from atop the mannequin. “I don’t want to mess things up for my friends and teacher anymore, and get dragged home to wait for them.”

“Too many beads?” He added. But Kairi could see him grimace quickly, and then go back to the dress that was their task.

The dress glittered subtly, but held the candy-pink colors of a delicate confection. For two people who had no fashion sense when it came to formal dress balls, it was a simple, lovely frock.Kairi shook her head, and let her keyblade dissapate into sparks. That had been a worry that she shared with Ven, and it was surprising to see someone who was known for fighting off darkness fret about being a burden.

But what was there to say? That she had failed, and was only now working her way back? 

“Ven, I don’t think things may be easy, but I think you’ve got a good adventure ahead of you. Just trust your instincts and your friends, and you’ll be okay.”Kairi smiled gently. It was always easy to offer kindness to others, and believe sincerely that they had a chance. And like what she had said about Lea, there was truth in the meaning of her words.

As for her own doubts, those were answers that she hadn’t found yet.

= = =

Night had already fallen when disaster struck. They could all tell by the din outside the attic room. Hurrying downstairs through the mouse-tunnels, Kairi and Ven scrambled out to the parlor, where the angry scene unfolded down below.

Beads snapped out of her dress in a rapidfire patter as Cinderella balked from the two girls, who swooped down on her like a pair of magpies. The delicate pink stitching, which had taken hours for them and a team of mice to put together, were being ripped to shreds. Earlier, the girl’s expression had been beatific as she held the dress in her hands, gently holding it like a new chance at life.

But now, as their hand-placed decorations rolled about the room, and Kairi was certain that even if they picked up every last one of them, the dress would never be whole again, to say nothing of the girl that was meant to use the dress to be free.

In a swirl of magic ,the Fairy Godmother materialized once more, glancing at Cinderella along with her two keyblade-wielding charges. 

“You meant for her to fail?” Ven’s voice was indignant. “But how could you do that to her?” He gestured to the Fairy Godmother sharply, far more free with his frustration than he had been while at work. “Isn’t it your job to look after her?”

In response, she squared her shoulders and faced the boy down, but her expression held the tense weight of remorse.“That well may be, dear, but my magic can’t shield her from everything that could happen.…”

“My duty,” continued the older woman, “is to help her take chances and start journeys for herself.” Gesturing with the wand, she waved it, sending sparks flying in a swirl of silvery light to emphasize her point. The smile on her face spoke volumes of knowledge that she kept close, presumably until the time was right.

“Even though they’re difficult,” Kairi observed. It was getting easier now to think about what she wanted to avoid— the Keyblade Graveyard, and her journey that seemed to throw everything from the past into her path. Having Ven there to talk had helped things, and so too did seeing what others had gone through.

Kairi then glanced down at Cinderella once more, who was in tears. She was hunched over and alone, hands gripping her knees, but still stood. Her eyes were fixed on the door with determination.

“That’s right, Kairi. Do you know, then, why I’ve asked for your help?”

A dress and a ballroom were inexplicably important to Cinderella. Kairi hadn’t understood it at all, right until the moment that she saw how it was taken away from her. Both Ven and the Godmother looked at her expectedly, and she nodded.

“So we can help her move forward again,” Kairi answered. “To bring her dream of a place away from despair.” The dress and the ball weren’t important, but the renewal they promised was something that the other girl had needed for a long time.

“Well done,” beamed the Godmother, peering out towards the pumpkin patch in the back of the house.

“Let’s make some magic.”

= =

The night was balmy and cool, and the veranda of the castle was perfect for people-watching after a ride to the castle atop a pumpkin-shaped carriage. And yet, Kairi had found herself sitting, knees hugged to her chest, on the balcony overlooking the castle entrance, away from the crowds and the dance floor. Parties hadn’t had the best memories for her.

“Hey, I was trying this pastry that they serve here, and—” Ven paused with a slight frown, still holding up the small fruit-topped tart for emphasis. “Is something wrong?”

“I…I’m just tired. That’s all.”

“Okay…well, if you need something to eat…” She looked over, to find that the tart was set down next to her. Cracking the slightest of grins, Kairi reached over and took it, realizing that she hadn’t tasted something quite that nice in a long time. 

“Thank you,” she said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“We’re fellow students in magic!” he piped up. “And teammates always help one another out.” Ven reached into his pocket, and pulled out a bright green charm that Kairi recognized almost immediately. “Aqua made this for me, so we’d know that we learned how to use a keyblade together.”

“I see,” The sight of the familiar shape should have drawn memories of a promise of a boy that Kairi knew she’d failed. But it didn’t. As it dangled from Ven’s hand in the quiet breeze of the night, it felt like a testament to his belief in friendship, despite everything that would challenge it.

Suddenly, the clock chimed midnight, and indignant shouts rose from the crowd of partygoers below. They watched as Cinderella, under a time constraint the Godmother had set, flee down the stairs, her pale dress shimmering in her wake. Left on the step was one of her shoes, crafted of crystal-bright glass.

But Kairi had stopped watching her escape, because something strange was happening right before her as well.

Ven clutched his shoulders tightly, shivering despite the fact that it was warm out. The same black specks that she had seen hovering around Xion flaked off his form, as if he was shedding scraps of darkness.Ven cast a look of distraught desperation towards Kairi, staring into her as if it was the last thing he’d see for a while. His eyes were wide and knowing of everything, including the secrets of what he was.

“Don’t give up, okay?” was all Ven was able to say, before darkness engulfed him in a massive shroud of purple and black smoke. It looked a little like the portals that Nobodies used, as the darkness settled over the boy, Kairi reached for her keyblade, wary for what would come forth. In the background, the castle clock continued to chime through midnight with an ominous repeating cadence.

At last, the cloud disappated, and before her stood another boy, wearing a suit of red and black. Where Ven had an open, inquisitive look, the new keyblade wielder was bored, and clawed through the air with a snarled-looking, chained-up monstrocity of a keyblade.

“Took him long enough,” muttered the dark-haired boy. “I was starting to wonder if he’d ever let me meet you.”

It wasn’t until they made eye contact that everything that unsettled Kairi about him clicked into place. The helmet’s base, shaped like a a jawbone, ahd concelaed it a bit. Yet undeniably, the face he wore mirrored Sora’s, from the features to the spiky hair atop his head.

“Princess,” he said, with a mock bow at Kairi. “I think the lady’s dream needs to take a detour.”

Leaping from the balcony, he plucked the slipper off the step, and bolted off into the woods.

Realizing that she was about to have a much longer night than expected, Kairi took off after him with a gesture towards her Dream Eaters that were resting by her. They had a doppelganger to pursue, and it didn’t matter if it was Sora’s or someone else entirely.

Even if he was Xehanort himself, the boy couldn’t do what he wished. She was resolved to find him and stop him. 


	3. Chapter 3

Forest were tricky places after dark, if Snow White and Cinderella and Alice’s feelings about them were on the mark. You never knew what you were going to get when you wandered into the dense realm, crowned by shadowed branches.

As Kairi sped off into the woods after the strange boy, she sensed it in the way that the path back to the chateau looked less clear. In the dead of night, uncertainty abounded.Her Dream Eaters growled cautiously at trees that seemed to brim with threats. Like Cinderella’s glittering gown dulling and reverting to a dress made of rags, the forest at midnight had transformed just as Ven had vanished, pulled into darkness and replaced by something with far sharper edges.

“All right. Get it together,” she said, smiling gently to them. The message had also been a little bit aimed at herself. “We have a lost shoe to find, and a boy to track down. The first part might be easier than the second, but let’s try.”

Kairi never knew what the creatures were thinking, but presumed that by now, the Dream Eaters that followed her were used to being pulled this way and that for many strange, inexplicable reasons. Even though the path forward was twisted and filled with new turns, they would accompany her, and she would fght fiercely to keep them alive, along with everything else she’d needed to do.

The same Dream Eaters she had encountered earlier still filled the woods. Joining them were new creatures, ones with glowing yellow eyes and pointed bodies that darted from shadow to shadow. They weren’t Heartless, but appeared to be born from something else that dwelled within darkness.

Kairi drew her keyblade and squared her shoulders as the nearest one darted towards her without hesitation, as if it’d been waiting for her. Unversed, they had been called in the entries of the journal that she had once browsed in the Waking World. The name of the boy that they served who now awaited further in the woods remained out of her recollections. In all fairness, it was a very dense journal.

But the time for quizzes she had had run short, and so had the time she had to retrieve the shoe. As Kairi hurried through the woods, striking down Unversed and swarming Dream Eaters, she saw glimpses of dark energy shoot through the night, leading her off the path and towards a thicket of trees in the distance. Just as the wisp of the Fairy Godmother’s magic had led Kairi to where she needed to be, the darkness and the Unversed tried to lead her. If that was her best chance, it was a chance worth taking now, even if the path forward lead her into danger.

The boy stood in the forest’s heart, legs draped over the stump like bark-covered fairy-king. His gaze wandered lazily to her, with one hand resting on the keyblade planted into the earth, and holding the glass slipper in his other hand.

“So, someone like you is going to try to play the hero now,” The way he tossed the slipper up, only to catch it, suggested that if it broke, it wouldn’t matter one bit to him. “That’s new.”

“When have any of you cared what I did?” asked Kairi. It was, in truth, absurd that she was being subject to the song-and-dance number of some warrior of darkness so late at night after working on a dress for three hours.

He swiped the shoe out of the air, and scoffed at the delicate, small object.

It was the one thing that kept Cinderella’s dream alive, and no one had any right to take it.

“Oh, we don’t, Princess. From the moment that Ven’s heart created me—Vanitas—” he pointed to himself— “that’s when we knew that everyone precious to Sora would have a place in our plans.”The way that his eyes flashed gold erased any other ways that he resembled Sora. As darkness flaked around him, he moved with a mechanical hitch that resembled more of an idea of a person than the real thing.

“Too bad none of you got with the program fast enough.”

Vanitas fought like someone who had been prepared his whole life to go to war, knocking back Kairi’s Keyblade easily and closing in the distance, twisting darkness into spells that were hurled her way. A quick barrier spell had deflected the worst of it, but the looming threat of the boy who could call negativity escaping her pursuit.

As she leapt off a sturdier branch, Kairi parried an attack with a keyblade strike of her own, realizing as soon as she landed that it couldn’t do much to him.

The trees made for good makeshift platforms to jump or vault off of, and this was a fight where she had needed everything that even had a remote chance of giving her an upper hand. When she looked up, Vanitas had vanished, teleporting out of her reach in the blink of an eye.

“Try again,” were the words Kairi heard before pain exploded at her side. She clutched where the Keyblade had struck, breathing hard and staying just free from being hurt further by the grace of her reflexes and her Dream Eaters. The Unversed that he had set upon them were keeping the creatures busy, which had left her mostly alone to fend for herself.

“And here I thought that the three novices I batted around were new at this. I bet even Ven would put up more a fight than this.”Vanitas set his keyblade against his shoulder, cocking his head to the side lazily in the same way Sora did whenever he’d felt confident enough to spar with the other children on the Islands.

“I bet he did,” Kairi waited until her breathing evened out, using her keyblade to pull herself up to a standing position again. “Why do you hate Ven so much?”Once the nausea from the hit to her side had faded, she eyed her opponent, considering what he’d do next. The problem of the stolen shoe remained, too.

“Well, Don’t you get it?” Vanitas gave a short bark of a laugh

“Ven _failed_ at what the both of us needed to do. He was meant to be so much more than a simple little keyblade wielder.”

That hadn’t been the way that the other boy had saw it. But when Vanitas had a temper and instincts that bordered on deadly, Kairi was incluned to let him rant for aw long as he needed to. 

“If that isn’t weakness, I don’t know what is.” His words were as sharp, biting and relentless as the attacks that he had hurled her way. And as much as the two of them were unlikely to see eye to eye on anything, Kairi understood how he worked. She knew how men like him wanted everyone else to live lives devoid of hope, because they hadn’t had the chance for it. That was, for better or worse, what made up his heart.

“You’re wrong,” Kairi shook her head. “Not in what’s happened, but in thinking that he was weaker for trying anyways.”

“In fact,” she added, “Ven wanting to be strong his own way is why you’re going to lose.” If the two of them were two sides of the same coin, all she had to do was think of what tied them together, believe, and be ready to fight again.

She held her hand to her heart, and thought about what Ven dreamed about, and how earnestly he pursued what he’d reached for. As her eyes shut, she felt the burdens of the fight ahead lift and take flight.

Memories — Ven’s, almost certainly, flooded her mind in a rush of lime-green colored lights and sparks. Sunny days spent with Aqua and Terra, striking distant targets with a flick of the wrist. Instruction at the stern tutelege of a dark-haried older man. The instinct of fighting in a style that was fast, fleeting, and clever was hers to borrow, because Ven had imparted it. 

Someone like Vanitas thought in straight-forward terms. If he could hack a problem to pieces with his keyblade, it was as good as solved. But in this world, it was the dream of one particular girl that set its rules in motion. Kairi glanced up and saw that the bat still held the little glass firmly, flying back in the direction of the castle. That left her with just the one obstacle that remained. As Kairi sprang to her feet, each step felt lighter— so light, in fact, that it seemed she could almost take the sky on invisible wings, leaping past obstacles and attacking at speeds she’d never imagined.

“Impossible,” hissed Vanitas. “I should’ve gotten rid of him already!”

“Isn’t that too bad?” Kairi grinned. “Looks like he had some surprises in store for you.” Aero spells had been Ven’s specialty, from the way that the gusts from her keyblade tore through the woods. As she sped towards Vanitas, the keyblade struck with a flurry of blows, and glowed the color of silver. At Vanitas’ counterattack, she squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for the hit, then opened her eyes.

Before Kairi’s eyes were a pair of transparent, folded wings crafted out of invisible blades of energy. They had shielded her, and unfurled once more into razor-sharp projectiles. With a wave of her keyblade, the feathers of light shot towards him pinning him to the tree, too hurt to pursue her.

The connection to Ven flickered as she fled, running as fast as she could and knowing that time was running short. But both she and the boy that had disappeared had a job to see through.

As the first rays of the sun reached the palace, she tucked herself just out of sight of the palace doors. It seemed like a lifetime since Kairi had last been there, and her limbs felt like lead as the last traces of the magical link faded. Yet the early morning held nothing except the promise of a better day.

As if seeing something illusory or fleeting, a prince approached the slipper and picked it up, and at the sight of it, hope illuminated his features. Kairi realized then that moments like that made the work worth it, just as the Fairy Godmother had taught them. The night had passed, and she was ready for something different in the new day.

**Author's Note:**

> ven going 'how did i get so small' was a highlight of bbs 
> 
> i could totally see terra looking at him and going like 'idk you seem the same size as always to me' because that is the thing a dad would say and terra is key dad


End file.
